Brussels joins the EU Urban Air Mobility initiative

Brussels has become the latest city to join the European Union’s Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Initiative that is part of the European Innovation Partnership in Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC). This Partnership, which is supported by the European Commission, brings together cities and regions, citizens, industries, SMEs, investors, researchers and other smart city actors.

Brussels will be focusing developing the use of drones by emergency services.

Under the umbrella of the Urban Air Mobility initiative, the setup of a number of demonstrator projects in cities across Europe will be studied and evaluated in the coming 18 months, which will bring urban mobility into the third dimension in Europe. This work is aligned with ongoing and future SESAR Joint Undertaking (SESAR JU) funded studies, including demonstrations, on drone traffic management in Europe moving one step closer towards the European Commission’s U-space vision for ensuring safe and secure access to airspace for drones. With demonstrable benefits to citizens and their approval, developing a market for drones and drone services will create jobs and growth in Europe. Particularly in urban areas, civil drones could be a way to address mobility needs such as emergency needs and traffic congestion; the latter currently costs more than €100 billion a year in the EU alone.

In view of the planned opening of the EU drones services market in 2019, the “Drones Helsinki Declaration” stressed the need to work on: (1) Legal requirements for operations, airspace and U-Space services; (2) An effective standard setting process and (3) Further investment in demonstrators and the establishment of a European U-Space Demonstrator Network. The Declaration also underlined a commitment to safe, secure, green drone operations that also respect privacy. The UAM Initiative aims to contribute to all of these aspects, and particularly in developing demonstration projects in close collaboration with local and/or regional authorities